I have specific dates in this story for a change - right on the money in fact. I know the very day that the most important events of this story took place.
Princess Grace Kelly of Monaco died September 14, 1982 in Monte Carlo when her car plunged off a road and into a ravine. She was an American actress of films and television, known for her remarkable beauty and poise. She had married the Prince of Monaco and lived what seemed like a fairy tale life.
I know the exact date because that was the morning I went up to Division Artillery Offices in Baumholder, Germany to stand for the Soldier of the Year competition. I had won Soldier of the Month … then Soldier of the Quarter … and was picked from a pool of candidates from that tier to represent my unit in Soldier of the Year. Not bad for my first year. I just didn’t get any good feedback otherwise from anyone in my leadership.
What I remember about the Soldier of the Year competition was that morning I had woken up and could not breathe. I had chronic bronchial pneumonia after getting a peculiar vaccination at the end of Basic Training in 1981 that lasted an entire year before I shook it off. My lungs were choked with mucus and pus. After rising from my bunk in the barracks that morning, I suddenly discovered I could not get any air. After walking around for nearly a minute turning blue, I dropped and slammed my chest on the metal railing at the end of my bunk. This forced up enough mucus that I was able to seize a breath. I went into the bathrooms and coughed up enough pus to fill a wheelbarrel before I got it all up. I had been running a low grade fever around 102 for months. Technically I was supposed to be in a hospital bed, not on duty. I was young so I thought I should tough it out and keep a straight face without shirking duty.
At risk of further stretching whatever remaining credibility I have, I am telling the truth when I say that two weeks earlier against the Army doctor’s advice, I ran in the European All-Forces Marathon and came in 23rd place in 2:17 out of thousands of runners competing from all over U.S. military bases in Europe. To this day I am not entirely sure how that could be possible. Coming from a former best of 3:09 in the marathon that is practically like going from fun-runner to Olympic athlete in only a few years. Once you get near 2:15 you are getting taken seriously as a competitive world class runner.
I only wished my high school coach Granger Ancarrow had been there to see it. I was so mediocre when in school and finally I had justified Granger’s original faith that I had the right stuff. It was sweet after all that disappointment.
I was thinking of coming years when I would get rid of these lung problems and imagining the improvement I would undergo once I was healthy and my lungs were clear. I saw myself making it to the Olympics against all possible odds. I felt if I could run that fast at the brink of death from pneumonia - I would be like the flash once I got better. I could see a 2:12 in my future with a bit of grace. It gave me something to live for and dream of.
It’s weird and ironic to think that my amazing performance later on (once I got healthy again) may have been related to bacteria. The nasty strain that made me so sick may have killed off all the residual bacteria malingerers I carried around from getting triple pneumonia as a child. It may have taken 20 years to purge it all, leaving me with vastly improved oxygen transfer once it was gone. Then of course, you have to wonder if I had superhuman lung oxygen supply my entire life (anthropologists will tell you with a straight face that Neanderthals could outrun a man on horseback with ease) that was masked by all these persistent infections in my lungs.
If you’re not exasperated yet, I will tell you about another hunch I have had all these years. It’s possible that the ugly bacteria I finally cleansed out of my lungs was not removed by all those antibiotics the Army gave me without a cost. Bacteria fleeing strong antibiotics have been demonstrated to be capable of doing nerve damage as they leave the body. Which might explain my delusionary feeling I could float on a cushion of air like a balloon at times. I never experienced that feeling when younger before my last bout of pneumonia in the military.
All those histrionics and there’s one thing I still can’t explain … how I won the Fort Riley 10K Mud Dash two years later … without getting any mud on my boots. Other competitors looked like tar babies when they finished. Observers swore I was floating like Peter Pan during the race. That’s one I will never have an answer for.
Anyway, I managed to detour around the story for quite a ways, so I will get to that now.
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